Made in Pune ‘The beast’ has one and all in awe with stunning show

Amol Gokhale

Wednesday, 19 July 2017

Pune: Volkswagen Motorsports India Head, Sirish Vissa, had a grin from ear to ear as he entered the press conference room after the opening round of Volkswagon Ameo Cup 2017 at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore on Sunday afternoon.

He had every reason to have a broad smile!

Ameo Cup car, which Vissa termed as his baby; was termed as ‘the beast’ by Karminder Singh, who won the Race 1 and stood second in the Race 2.

Pune: Volkswagen Motorsports India Head, Sirish Vissa, had a grin from ear to ear as he entered the press conference room after the opening round of Volkswagon Ameo Cup 2017 at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore on Sunday afternoon.

He had every reason to have a broad smile!

Ameo Cup car, which Vissa termed as his baby; was termed as ‘the beast’ by Karminder Singh, who won the Race 1 and stood second in the Race 2.

The new VW Ameo cup cars almost matched the timings of Indian Touring cars, Ameo Cup being a One-Make series earned the plaudits of all the racers for its reliability and performance it delivered.

But isn’t that a race car is supposed to deliver? But what makes the 2017 Ameo car so special? The car is entirely developed by Vissa and his team in Volkswagon’s plant based at Chakan in Pune.

“I am really proud and relieved. It’s been a fantastic effort from the entire team because this car was completely developed at the Pune plant,” said Vissa. “It’s not a plug and play. Doing one or cars, you can manage, but we have 27 cars over here. It’s a huge task and guys have done an amazing job,” he further added, with repeating the word ‘huge’ thrice, showing the efforts that were put in building the car which really makes him proud.

From concept to the track
Reliability is one word one can always associate with the German automobile, and how can a Volkswagen race car be an exception? Vissa and his team based in Pune have delivered exactly the same.
“Right from the initial concept of what the car will be, it was done by the team in Pune. We presented to the board, about the specifications of the car and we started off in September last year.”

“By December we had the first engine in a test car and running on engine test bed. It’s very complicated engine which requires equally complicated ECU and controller to work with it,” he explained further about the heart of the car, which boasts a 1.8-litre turbocharged TSI engine, capable of producing the 205hp.

Better in every sense
It’s not just about building the car, but it needs to deliver when the stakes are high and a response the car got said it all about the hard work put in by the team of 40 engineers.

“I like everything about the car, it’s a beast. It was little difficult to get used to the car as it’s different than previous VW cars, but it’s pure race car, that’s all I can say about it,” said Karminder Singh, who dominated the weekend in Coimbatore.

The head of VW’s motorsports division elaborated on what the Karminder meant, revealing features of the car.

“Compared to whatever we’ve built before this as part of our series, this car is better in every sense. It has better handling, better braking, better gearbox, and more power, it’s all new” he expressed with a smile on face and pride in his voice.

Vissa also stressed on the work done with MRF in tyre making as the new 17-inch tyres made by the tyre giant from Chennai. Both MRF and Volkswagen have put in an extensive work in developing the tyres suitable for the new cars.

The opening round is now done and dusted, the championship will now move to Chennai for the next round. Once again the engines of Ameo will rev up, the ever reliable machines will hit the tarmac burning rubber, and one more thing will be guaranteed.

The same ear to ear grin on Vissa’s face as ‘his baby’ will set track ablaze wooing racers and fans in the stands.